Cirdan

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Aurion 898

Another The Grey Wanderer deck, this time with Círdan the Shipwright for some Narya shenanigans!

Setup

Search your deck for Strider to give Cirdan a whopping 6 right out the gate and so he doesn't have to exhaust to quest.

Opening hand

You need to mulligan for Silver Harp. That way, in every turn except the first turn you get to keep both the cards you draw with Cirdan. Beyond that, it is nice to see Emery as you can generally get her out for free, though with Steward of Gondor and Sneak Attack in this deck, she can whiff! Bilbo Baggins is also a nice early card to see as his Hobbit Pipe gives you an extra card every time you plau Elrond's Counsel. Resourceful is always nice to see in your opening hand as it guarantees you will be able to play one before you leave secrecy behind you. Narya is also great to see in your opening hand as it will give Cirdan a icon to pay for Steward of Gondor and Sneak Attack.

First turn

Exhaust The Grey Wanderer to give Cirdan 2 resources and immediately attach a Silver Harp to him if you have it in hand. Now you can draw two cards every turn without having to discard one. The only time you don't want to use your harp is if you draw Elven-light in which case choose to discard it and then you can immediately play it to draw another card. The only other way to use Elven-light in this deck is by discarding it with Glorfindel's ability.

Strategy

Make use of Elrond's Counsel and Sneak Attack/Gandalf to keep your threat low until you build up enough of a board state to deal with anything the encounter deck throws at you, then use Narya to ready and boost your Northern Trackers and other more powerful allies.

Remember you can declare a defender then before you turn the shadow card or resolve combat damage, you can use Narya to boost your defender's and ready them to defend another attack or stike back. This is particularly useful with Jubayr, when you declare him as a defender against a weaker enemy to discard a shadow card from a more powerful (non-unique) enemy, you can then get his up to 4 (or 5 if Arwen Undómiel is in play, 6 if he has a Hauberk of Mail) and then have him defend the stronger enemy without fear of a nasty shadow effect.

Key points

Don't forget that once you have 5 characters in play, Cirdan goes back down to 4 but he can still quest without exhausting using Strider.

Remember The Grey Wanderer only allows you to play non-unique cards from other spheres and then only in the planning phase, so Steward of Gondor and Sneak Attack can only be played when Cirdan has Narya on his finger.

Don't be afraid to use Will of the West early on if you end up discarding a card by mistake or you have used up all of Elrond's Counsel. There are 3 copies on the deck for a reason.

13 comments

Sep 24, 2021 eddyvan 34

Nice! I've been having a lot of fun with The Grey Wanderer contract lately. I find that I rarely use the healing aspects of it because of the low starting threat I can turtle until allies comes out. Then they all just take the damages, lol.

Sep 24, 2021 Aurion 898

@eddyvan yeah, the healing is useful in a tight spot though and can help you survive low engagement enemies when you ar still trying to get set up.

Sep 24, 2021 Truck 1472

Yes, another Aurion Grey Wanderer deck! All of your previous GW builds are so fun. I'll be trying this out soon!

Sep 25, 2021 Aurion 898

@Truck This one's pretty powerful. Have fun!

Sep 26, 2021 old_toby 49

No Firyal?

Sep 26, 2021 ahez20 138

It would be a little tricky to add Firyal to this deck and be able to play her. He would have to take out multiple cards in order to either add Song of Wisdom to give Círdan the Shipwright the icon or add Stand and Fight to play her from the discard pile but either way it would take several cards out of the deck.

Sep 26, 2021 doomguard 2191

stand and fight is a good addition, even without firyal. specially in multiplayer (you can choose allies of the discard of other players)

i think you do not need 3 copys of elvenlight or will o the west, would reduce both by 1 and have then 2 stand and fight.

Sep 26, 2021 ahez20 138

If you did that then you could probably get away with losing one copy of Ancient Mathom and adding one copy of Firyal.

Sep 27, 2021 Aurion 898

@doomguard and @ahez20 Stand and Fight is powerful and all, but the Silver Harp kind of means it's useless here as you are not discarding allies and you don't really chump block with this deck. The Will of the West combines perfectly with Timely Aid, Elrond's Counsel, A Test of Will, Hasty Stroke and Sneak Attack & Gandalf (who incidentally cannot be brought back with Stand and Fight to give you ridiculous amounts of treachery and shadow cancellation, threat reduction and direct damage from Gandalf and get your expensive allies out for very little cost (with Timely Aid). Elven-light and Ancient Mathom are critical in making sure you can then redraw these cards quickly enough once you've recycled your deck, so I wouldn't fancy trading any of those out for Stand and Fight. I can see the potential in a multiplayer game but I generally play solo. @old_toby you could get Firyal into play with Timely Aid but it's a bit of a long shot and it's another card for Emery to whiff with.

Sep 27, 2021 old_toby 49

Yes, I agree. Too clunky for Firyal. Deck seems solid.

Sep 27, 2021 doomguard 2191

the harp is a response (so optionally) optionally. you can discard if you wish.

and i wonder if you really need all 3 copies of the cards i mentioned.

Sep 27, 2021 Aurion 898

@doomguard true, but I don't really see the point in solo as you've still got to pay the full amount for the ally and if you aren't able to draw stand & fight, any off-sphere ally sitting in your hand or discard pile is just a bit of a waste, whereas elven light is like renewable energy for protector of lorien and bags you a whole load of card draw at the same time and will of the west allows you to keep playing all those juicy cards I mentioned. If I was going to swap out any card for stand & fight it would probably be Lindir as you very rarely get to use his ability and maybe a copy of Unexpected Courage as you already get to ready Cirdan with the Grey Wanderer anyway, so two is probably overkill and UC isn't critical to this deck working.

Sep 27, 2021 doomguard 2191

i think its more a safety-thing. you will not have a good defender from the start, and then have safety-reuse of cheap allies is not bad, specially in the harder nm-szenarios or where you begin with an enemy engaged or something like dreadnought on hard. OR if (and thats only for the hardest of adventures) you want include firyal (in dreadnough hard it could be REALLY gamechanging to avoid ship-enemys, specially when you cannot reduce your thread by more than 1 per round, then you will sooner or later engage the big onesships with boarding).

i am personally not a big fan of firyal in solo (its cheating in my opinion, regarding what other efford must be taken to completely discard an encountercard.....) but to have good shots at the hardest things, it helps. but for 95% of szenarios, this deck do not need it.